I mailed all the CDs from the current clamor-crop which is most gratifying, and I have spent the morning taking up ancient tile of an ugly mustard hue, using a sledge hammer (sawed-off) and floor chisel. BAM!! BAM!! SPLINTER! CRUCNCH!! BAM!!! (sweep, sweep, sweep. Clattering crash of old tile remnants falling into the trash.) (Repeat until spinny, then take brek).

Long, slow porcess but when it is done the mustard tile will be replaced with oaken planking, much improved. The price of betterment is eternal inconvenience...

I took the bear skin rug out of the bag it has been in for a while and measured it. Then listed it on Craig's list. Who knows what will come of this, but it would be nice to move it out of here. MOM kept complaining about how dusty it was, and how much it hurt to trip over it at night. And it scared the cats.

Well, turns out there was another few hours to do getting the old strips of adhesive up from the concrete under the tile. Man, that was built tough. Almost done now. Then I shall install oaken Alloc flooring. Fine looking.

The rug didn't last long on Craig's List. The group that runs the place are a bunch of idiots. But that goes without saying - it is Craig's List. Seems there are some really lala land laws in California that make them all leery of approaching a 100-year old bear skin rug. I found an online place for an auction coming up, though, so who knows.

Amos, don't you give MOM that stuff. You know she's not used to it. Just keep the Igloo cooler full of iced down beer and she'll be just fine today.

Just so you know, I think we won't see Eiseley this evening. I think she and MOM are out eating tamales and drinking dark Mexican beer. Her tamale lady came by today and since she didn't have to drive to Salt Lake City or cook, she's probably hanging out on the porch swing.

Well, she don't drink. Water, that is. Any thing else, from apple juice to rotgut to battery acid that's had chewin' tobacco soaked in it, is used to quench her thirst. I remember once she wondered what was behind a wall surrounding a staircase. So she just hauled off and punched a hole in that reinforced concrete wall and found a place for a new closet. A kid was actin' up once and she remonstrated with him a couple time without any good behavior resultin', so she hung him by his belt from one of the ceiling girders for the whole danged story hour. Kid'd still be hanging there today iffen his belt hadn't busted -- his ma and pa thought it the best thing ever happened to him, and today that very same kid has a very lucrative career as a pinata -- all thanks to Eiseley.

Well...I was pretty drunk and my memory is really fuzzy about that. But I'm certain that the reason seemed like a good one at the time, if I could just remember what it was. Seem to kinda vaguely remember it either had to do with Universal Enlightenment or cleaning really foul septic tanks. Could have been both because I was going through an "enlightenment by having them do nasty, nasty work" phase at the time. That 151 proof rum will git to ya, lemme tell ya! Anyway, here you are, such as you are.

The red-oak flooring is all in, with neat trim around and only a couple of little flaws in the fine carpentry, which I shall fix today. I was so worn and weary by the end of Sunday I just threw all my tools into the workshop and didn't clean up. But I gotta tell you after living with mustard yellow-green tile by that back entrance for 14 years it is just a HUGE improvement to the music room. Y'all should come see. This is a BFD, as our Veep would say. I like a man who doesn't mince words.

Odd. I could have sworn...well, as I get older I start to give up on some of my creations, the ones that didn't turn out even remotely like the spec sheet. Well, it's getting harder and harder to find good help these eons, what with the Unions and EIS and all. Sometimes I'm sorry I thought the whole thing up.

Oh, you know Mom. She probably got off at the wrong exit and stopped at a tavern to collect her wits...

Here's a story from Douglas Fairchild:

"y high school girlfriend's great grandfather (I didn't know this at the time we were going together ... she probably didn't either) had built the only house that had a formal dining room, so during the ten years of the Republic (between the Alamo and being accepted as a State), when the Circuit Judge showed up, they covered the dining room table with a blanket and set up court there. This was Judge "Three Legged Willie" Williamson, what it took to be a circuit judge in those days. He got the nickname because he had a withered left leg below the knee ... possibly from polio ... and had a wooden leg that strapped on at the knee, with a pant's leg on it down to his boot and the real one sticking out behind with another pants leg and shoe on it. Three legs. ) I don't know where the Sheriff was, or if they even had one, but the Judge obviously didn't need one ... the following was in the court records from those years:

One of the locals opined that "We settle our own affairs around here and don't need none of Sam Houston's law."Three Legged Willie placed a shotgun on the bench, laid his pistol beside it and announced, "Oyez, oyez, oyez! .... Court for the sixth district of The Republic of Texas is now in session or By God Somebody's Going To Get Killed."There was no further objection. He held court, settled some disputes and rode off next day to the another county."

Might be the same judge who, when he was told that "Here we go by Bowie on knives!" and one was stabbed into a table, replied (while suiting the action to the words), "Overruled by 'Colt on Revolvers'!"

30 ¦ And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: 32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. 33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. 34 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. 35 And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. .36 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. 37 And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. .38 And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

So you see, it began badly; but the end is not yet and we may yet all be redeemed.

You know what they say, Amos: the family that lays together stays together. AND we're related to a neat-o extinct group of marine animals belonging to the cephalopod subclass Ammonoidea. They are excellent index fossils, and it is often possible to link the rock layer in which they are found to specific geological time periods.

The closest living relative of the Ammonitida is not the modern Nautilus, which they somewhat outwardly resemble, but rather the subclass Coleoidea (octopus, squid, and cuttlefish).

THEREFORE and BEHOLD and QED: All of Mom's children are cousins to the the Giant Squid!!!

"The residents of quiet, tree-lined Bowker Street were a peaceful lot as a rule, but their feathers got a bit ruffled when the local ice cream truck man refused to lower the volume of the horrid wheedling music his vehicle constantly emanated. And so when the deranged war veteran from the next block destroyed the truck with a bazooka one fine spring morning, they all felt the warm glow of epicaricacy spreading through their veins."

(epicaricacy (n)) 1.(rare) Rejoicing at or derivation of pleasure from the misfortunes of others.

I conclude from my vast exposure to his most inventive, articulate, and deeply literate flights of fancy, that yon Rapaire is indeed an antiquarian deipnosophist, and a pleasant addition to any gathering of aspiring aristologists.

Amos, I too have a thesaurus. He's been a pet since he hatched out of the egg and he's big enough now to eat San Diego AND El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula. He's been chomping at the bit, so to speak, to gobble to you up. I've only been able to hold him in check by reminding him that we attempt to eschew gobbledegook, jargon, and that we try to avoid polysyllabic disasters such as "bombilate" and "amphibological." He replied, and I quote, "Tell him I said that he should attempt to mictruate up cordage."